List of Sailor Moon Super S Episodes - Overview

Overview

This season was produced concurrently with the manga's fourth story arc, Dream, by Naoko Takeuchi. Because of the series popularity, Toei Animation started adapting Super S into an anime before it was finished. As a result, there are significant differences in the thematic tone between the two. Unlike the darker-themed manga, the anime is characterized by a more child-like atmosphere and the absence of the four Outer Senshi (Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, Sailor Pluto and Sailor Saturn), leading many fans to assume SuperS is the least popular of all of the Sailor Moon seasons.

By the time Super S was released, the original audience of the first season had largely grown out of Sailor Moon franchise. The story's focus fell on Chibiusa (Rini in the English versions) since it was believed that the new, younger fans of Sailor Moon could more easily identify with her. However, Ikuhara's use of weighty subtexts and fairy tales were not appreciated by the audience.

This season is divided into two arcs. The first arc is largely based around people's dreams, where a mysterious entity known only as "Pegasus", enters Chibiusa's dreams to hide from his enemy - the Dead Moon Circus, which aims to eliminate Pegasus. By eliminating Pegasus, the Dead Moon Circus claims they can easily "take over the world". The second arc is also based on dreams, but focuses more entirely with children's dreams which is fitting with the newly arrived enemy (The Amazoness Quartet) and their dreams to stay forever children, but is mainly based upon the arrival of Queen Nehelenia, the "Dark Moon Queen" and arch leader of the Dead Moon Circus invasion of Earth. She is also arch leader of all her minions - that is, everyone of the Dark Moon Circus.

In this season, Chibiusa meets her own cat guardian named Diana, who has arrived from the future to oversee how Chibiusa and Usagi are doing. In the manga however, Diana had first appeared in the second story arc. Chibiusa is visited in her dreams by a being called Pegasus who seeks her help in escaping the Dead Moon Circus led by the evil Queen Nehellenia and Zirconia who are searching Earth for both him and the Golden Crystal.

This season was dubbed into English in 2000 by Cloverway Inc. and Optimum Productions. Two characters had their genders swapped: Fisheye was changed from male to female, while Zirconia, considered a monstrously hideous creature, was changed from a female into a male. Super S was dubbed using the same voice actors as the previous season. It was broadcast edited on Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami, and was respectively released to VHS edited and to DVD unedited.

Not included in the English dub was a television special that originally aired between episodes 131 and 132 in Japan. The special, which ran for an hour, consisted of three self-contained mini-episodes which told side stories independent of the continuing plot of the Super S series proper.